My Problem with Boobplate

tragic-female-armor:

I’m just gonna go ahead and say this now: I have a serious social-anxiety disorder that inhibits me from reading any of the comments on this Tumblr. My condition is a little complicated, so I’m not going to take the time to describe how or why, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. That said, instead of viewing your feedback and answering your questions directly, I’m going to view the feedback on similar sites and hope that they’re asking similar questions. If you find I answered something you were curious about, awesome. If I don’t, I apologize in advance.

Now then, onto the subject of boobplate. When I see images of women in boobplate being criticized, the most common defense seems to be that there simply isn’t anything wrong with it. It’s metal, it covers the woman’s chest; what’s the big deal?

Personally, I think of boobplate the same way I think of Spartan ab-armor (abplate? muscleplate?).  It can be a nice design concept, and it certainly has its place in fantasy games, but it’s not necessary, nor does it have any real functionality. There’s no *need* for armor with built-in pecks, but if that’s what you want your character to wear, more power to you.

This, however, is exactly where my problem with boobplate begins. Everyone knows that male armor doesn’t have to have abs molded into it, and as a result we only see it depicted in games every now and then. Boobplate, on the other hand, is widely believed to be a necessary aspect of female armor, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many alternatives for it presented in fantasy games (there’s a reason why “Women’s Armor: Done Right” has so few images of women in platemail). It shouldn’t be seen as a woman’s only choice when selecting armor, and yet that is all too often the case.

My problem then deepens with the way boobplate is usually designed. There are ways to make boobplate that both looks good and doesn’t detract from the armor’s overall functionality, buuutt these ways are not the ones I see. Instead, boobplate is commonly designed to A) push and hold women’s breasts up like a metal bra (ouch), B) hug women’s skin like a latex suit or a metal corset (double ouch), or C) give women ridiculously large, metal breasts that look like they’d be awfully hard to maneuver in combat. There are also the problems of boobplate that shows cleavage, boobplate that exposes the midriff, etc. Really, it’s quite a big mess.

“Wait wait wait, Tragic, what do you mean boobplate isn’t necessary!?! Of course it is! Women need a special compartment for their breasts, otherwise they’d get squished!”

Yeeaahhh, from the top:

1) Regular breastplate gives plenty of room for the bust already. I’ve never met a woman with breasts so insanely large that they couldn’t fit into a suit of armor without special accommodations for their chest. And, yes, I’ve seen many a plus-size lady in armor.

2) Once you’ve donned all of your underclothes and chainmail, there’s hardly any boob left to speak of. I personally looked like a wooden board with all of my husband’s gear on.

3) Please take a moment to look at these images of real women in armor and just stop forever because the notion that women need boobplate is just ridiculous.

4) Joan of Arc.

In short, my problems with boobplate are that it’s horribly overused and most instances of it are extremely problematic. Hence, the #boobplate tag.

Great commentary on the problem of boobplate by a mod of a related blog.

As always, crucial parts bolded by yours truly.

~Ozzie

I’ve been trying to think of any good reason why someone would endure all the extra fitting sessions necessary to make sure a breastplate yells “I have boobs”.

Still can’t think of any.

– wincenworks

eldritchgender:

i am actually So Angry at the forum topic about female armor being “too concealing” lmfao

women don’t exist for you to ogle even in video games! shut the fuck up! 🙂

So… against my better judgement I went looking and I found this thread. In which the author proposes he’s not satisfied with the many existing options in clothing (even though you can literally just wear the armor on top and tell the game to make it invisible) and nobody understands what he’s asking for.

Probably because what he asks for shifts constantly as he gets more and more negative feedback from people pointing out how absurd his request is.  The two pics on the left are early examples of what he’s asking for, the two pics on the right are modifications to pics of armor he’s done to illustrate what he means.  See if you can spot any differences:

image

This is not to propose that he’s an evil mastermind that planned this all along, but rather that ridiculous armor, particularly ridiculously revealing female armor, has become so institutionalized in pop culture that people literally do not see the absurdity of these requests or even consider that maybe the whole premise if flawed.

image

So general unhelpfulness of thinking that not on the same level of Tera Online is going to reassure anyone; it’s pretty terrifying that we live a world where people genuinely think all armour should show off skin.

– wincenworks

itsbirds:

It really says something about fantasy art that the thing people seem to remark most on in my work is the fact the female armor I draw is ‘functional’  with out and sexy bits out there showing.  Something I just think of as “well you wouldn’t want to get stabbed in the navel… so lets put some studs and leather there” is so foreign to some that it sticks out. But, it really shouldn’t stick out. People shouldn’t even notice that. And that kind of pisses me off about the other artists out there. Look I am not saying every character has to be all covered up and armored, if it is a female/male rogue who uses her god given talents to subvert, distract, and get what s/he wants by all means  show some skin.. .but if it is a paladin, warrior, anything that needs to be heavily armored then put some damn good armor on them! And despite what some art directors think, a girl can look pretty damn hot in some nice, functional, armor with out her tits flopping about. And if you are an artist and the only way you can make a female attractive is by showing her ass or cleavage, you are a BAD ARTIST, go practice.

Bolded for emphasis.

It’s really a painful realization that bikini armors are so ingrained in the collective consciousness that actually protective female armor stands out as novelty.

Which also proves just how bullshitty the “skimpy costume design is creative” excuse is. If it was so, people would be more surprised by it than by costumes that do provide cover.
Yet here we are and no-one’s shocked by the sight of bikini armor anymore.

~Ozzie